How can our movement effectively build trust and collective power within Black communities to challenge the exploitative practices of multinational funeral corporations, especially given their covert tactics and the emotional sensitivities around death, without inadvertently reinforcing paternalistic dynamics or co-optation?
Begin where grief meets agency: convene listening circles in church basements and living rooms where mourners recount corporate abuses in their own words. Those stories seed a shared map of which parlors are secretly owned, which contracts were broken, which elders were fleeced. Publish the map in barbershops and on WhatsApp, not corporate media, so knowledge circulates through trusted channels first.
Next, spin mutual aid into structural power. Pool modest weekly contributions into a community burial fund governed by elected kin-committees. The fund pre-negotiates fair-price packages with the few remaining Black-owned homes, buys refrigerated storage to stall rushed decisions, and sets aside capital to purchase at-risk parlors and convert them into cooperatives. Ownership is the ultimate boycott.
Couple that material leverage with ritual power. Stage candlelit “Dignity Vigils” outside corporate parlors on anniversaries of egregious frauds, blending prayer, drum, and press conference. Grieving families lead, activists support, keeping the struggle sacred rather than paternalistic. Publicly invite the company to sign a transparency pact; when they refuse, the moral contrast writes itself.
Guard against co-optation by publishing annual ledgers of the fund, rotating leadership every six months, and refusing sponsorship from the very firms you fight. Transparency inoculates.
Victory is not merely lower prices; it is reclaiming the rite of passage from extractive hands. Which ancestor’s story will you elevate first to ignite this reclamation?
What specific community-led practices or rituals can we develop to deepen trust and collective agency around confronting funeral industry exploitation, while consciously resisting paternalism and ensuring that Black voices lead the movement’s spiritual and emotional reclamation?
Begin with “Homegoing Kitchens”: potluck evenings where elders recount burial traditions while volunteers prepare meals. As stories flow, a legal advocate quietly translates them into practical checklists—how to spot hidden ownership clauses, how to invoke state grievance boards. Trust grows because wisdom, food and strategy mingle in one room.
Host Community Casket-painting workshops in vacant lots. Families adorn simple pine boxes with symbols of the departed; the act demystifies cost inflation, teaches craft skills and turns the coffin into an artwork of resistance. Sell a few at sliding scale to seed the movement fund.
Form Witness Circles: three-person teams who accompany bereaved families into any funeral negotiation, recording prices and promises in a shared ledger. The circle asks clarifying questions but never speaks over the family, modelling solidarity without paternalism.
Once a season, stage an Ancestor Procession that walks from the oldest Black-owned parlor to the nearest corporate front. Libations at the first stop, a public reading of broken contracts at the second. The procession dramatizes the transfer of dignity now underway and invites onlookers to sign cooperative pledges.
Rotate every leadership role after one lunar cycle to prevent gatekeeping and keep the spirit fresh.
Which ritual would crack open dormant imagination where you live, and who will you invite to design it?